Page 13: The Minish Cap
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Gameboy Advance~Nov. 4, 2004) Summary Wanting to create an origins story for the Four Swords series. Nintendo came up with this game where Link wears a talking cap. Story According to legend, a race of people calling themselves "The Picori" came down from the sky and vanquished the evil that plagued the land. Now with people creating a governed land named Hyrule, they lived in peace. One day, Link was called by Princess Zelda to attend a festival where Link will receive the honor to wield the Picori Sword. Then, an evil being named Vaati appeared and kidnaps the Princess. Link must embark on a journey to rescue her with the help of not only a talking cap named Ezlo but also a micro race called the Picoris. Gameplay Complete Playlist The gameplay is the same as is in previous LOZ games. The only difference is that you can collect certain items such as Kin Stones and fuse them with other people you meet to receive items and new sword moves and even proceed on with your quest. You can also collect figurines of people, objects and items. Reception The game was quite well received by fans and critics alike. Even for a franchise that looks a bit long in the tooth. Trivia * Vaati's laugh is actually a lower pitched version of the Happy Mask Salesman from Majora's Mask. * The Bob-Ombs from Super Mario Bros. make an appearance in a dungeon. * In the game's graphics code. You can see when viewing a cave in Castor Wilds that there are Japanese Hiragana which means "Mole". The only way to view it is to hack into the games graphics code. * The Dojo theme song in the European version sounds different from the Japanese and American versions, and there's no real explanation to this. * A reference to Ocarina of Time is during the Hyrule festival when you meet Malon as she'll sing Epona's Song. ** There's also a reference to Pikmin in the form of the Mushroom-like enemy: Puffstool which you find while traversing the first dungeon. His attack pattern is similar to enemies you find in Pikmin. * The game has a series of unused elements ** There was going to be a mailbox that would sway back and forth (a reference to The Wind Waker) every time you have a new piece of mail waiting to be read. ** There are also unused sound bits and music tracks. One of them including Saria's theme from Ocarina of Time ** There's a flat and undetailed sprite of a man who is only wearing underwear, a cape and a crown. He had a full motion sprite sheet as well as other animations. Spoiler Trivia Note: Do not read this if you haven't played the game but would like to as this trivia contains spoilers about the Legend of Zelda Timeline. * In the game's intro. It implies that the race of Picori came from the sky. According to Hyrule Historia, The Minish Cap is (chronologically) the second adventure after Skyward Sword, eventhough Skyward Sword wouldn't be released until another 7 years after The Minish Cap. Another suprising reference to Ocarina of Time.